Chapter Four.
Struggling
“And my faith is torn to a thousand scraps,
And my heart feels ice while my words breathe flame.”
It was a wild, wet morning, some days after the Oakby dinner-party. Summer weather was apt in those regions to be invaded in August by something very like autumn; bits of brown and yellow appeared here and there among the green, and fires became essential. To-day the mist was driving past the windows of the boys’ sitting-room, blotting out the view, till the wind rent it apart and showed dim sweeps of distant moor.
Bob Lester was sitting at the table, with his eyes fixed, not on the exceedingly inky copy of Virgil before him, but on the window, as he remarked dolefully, —
“Birds are wild enough already, without all this wind to make them worse.”
Jack was writing at the other end of the table; Nettie, with an old waterproof cloak on, was kneeling on the window-seat, watching the weather, with Buffer, apparently similarly occupied, by her side; and Cheriton, with considerable sharpness of manner, was endeavouring to drive the Latin lesson into Bob’s head.
For Bob was under discipline. Such a bad report of him had come from school as to idleness, troublesomeness, and general misbehaviour, that his father, after a private interview, the nature of which Bob did not disclose, had ordered a certain amount of work to be done every day, to be taken back to school, and had forbidden a gun or a fishing-rod to be touched till this was accomplished. Cherry in the early days of his convalescence, had received Bob’s growls on the subject, and had offered to help him, as Jack’s efforts as a tutor were not found to answer, and had actually coaxed a certain amount of information into him. Lately, however, the lessons had not gone off so well. Cheriton had made a great point of them, and held Bob as if in a vice by the force of his will; but he was sarcastic instead of playful, and contemptuous instead of encouraging, and now lost patience, laying down his book and speaking in a cutting, incisive tone that made Bob start – and stare.
“We have all got aims in life, I suppose; I wish we were all as likely to succeed in them as you are, Bob.”
“I haven’t got an aim in life,” said Bob, turning round as if affronted.
“No? I thought your aim was to be the greatest dunce in the county. It’s well to know one’s own line, and do a thing well while one’s about it. A low aim’s a mistake in all things.”
Jack laid down his pen, and stared hard at Cheriton. Bob waited unconscious, expecting the smile and twinkle that took the sting out of all Cherry’s mischief, but none came.
“Come now, you needn’t be down on a fellow in that way,” he said, angrily. “My line mayn’t be yours, but I’ll – I’ll stick to it one day.”
“I just observed that you were sticking to it now, heart and soul. Let all your wits lie fallow; with the skill and energy you are showing at present, you may get to the level of a ploughboy in time.”
“I say, Cherry,” said Jack, “that’s a little strong.”
Bob shut the book with a bang and stood up.
“I’m not going to stand that,” he said; and Cheriton recollected himself and coloured. “I beg your pardon, Bob,” he said. “It was too bad. I – I was only joking. Will you go on now?”
“No,” said Bob. “I won’t be made game of.”
“You tire Cherry to death,” said Jack. “No wonder he loses patience.”
“I didn’t ask him to do it,” said Bob. “Nettie, where are you going?”
“Out,” said Nettie, briefly.
“Then I’m going too,” said Bob, following her; while Cheriton wearily threw himself down on the cushions in the window-seat and in his turn stared out at the mist. Jack sat and watched him. He had never uttered a word even to Alvar, but he was full of anxiety. What was the matter with Cherry?
He was lively enough at meal-times and with his father and grandmother; he had resumed all his usual habits, except that the bad weather had prevented him from going out shooting. He had laughed at Alvar for being over-anxious about him, and had taken a great deal of unnecessary trouble about sundry village matters and affairs at home. He had talked what Alvar called “philosophy” to Jack with unusual seriousness; and yet Jack, with whom perhaps he was least on his guard, missed something. And then Mrs Ellesmere had remarked that she did not like to see Cheriton with such a pink colour and such black circles round his eyes, and had warned her husband not to let him fatigue himself on some walk they were taking. Surely Cherry coughed oftener, and was more easily tired, than he had been ten days ago.
Jack could bear it no longer, and began, severely —
“Cherry, you shouldn’t worry yourself with Bob. It’s too much for you.”
“Not generally,” said Cheriton. “I’m tired to-day.”
“What’s the matter with you, Cherry?” said Jack, coming nearer.
“The matter?” said Cherry, sitting up, and laughing more in his usual way. “What should be the matter? Are you taking a leaf out of Alvar’s book? Of course, one isn’t very strong after such an illness, and I don’t sleep always. I shall go away, I think, soon, and then I shall be right enough.”
“Where will you go to? Let me go with you. Or must it be Alvar?”
“Oh, I shall be best alone. Don’t worry, Jack. I’m no worse, really.”
Poor Cheriton! His efforts at concealment, made half in pride, and half in consideration, were not very successful.
As he lay awake through the long nights, Ruth’s woeful look and appealing eyes haunted him, and as he remembered their parting, his own bitter scorn came back on him with a pang, partly, no doubt, because she was still irresistible to him, but partly, also, because he knew that he had felt the temptation under which she had fallen. She had treated him shamefully; and she declared that her excuse was, if excuse it could be called, that she had been driven so frantic by her misjudgment of Rupert, that anything seemed legitimate that would give him pain. She had transgressed every code of womanly honour, and had cost Cheriton pain beyond expression by obeying a sudden impulse of mortified passion. Any sort of revenge on her by Cheriton was at least as incompatible with any standard of social obligation, no extra high principle was needed to condemn it; to take such a blow and be silent over it seemed a mere matter of course. Cheriton was very high-principled, he had conquered in his time strong temptations; moreover, he was more than commonly loving and tender, and yet he felt that there had been more than one moment when he might have committed this utter baseness. He forgot for a moment that he had conquered, that strength, however unconscious, had come to him from his former struggles, and had held him back; he felt that if this were possible to him, he was safe from nothing. He shuddered as he thought of his interview with Rupert, and his first prayer since the blow turned into a thanksgiving.
But any thought of his own conduct was soon swept away by the rush of regret and pain. She had failed him, however unworthy he might be to judge her; and as he remembered the many sweet and enchanting moments that had led up to his final disappointment, he could not but feel that she had deliberately deceived him. And yet – and yet – as he recalled her face at the dinner-table, he knew that he would have come back to her at a word; he felt as if life was worth nothing without her, as if father and brothers, home, interests, and ambitions had all lost their charm. Cheriton retained enough command over himself to resolve to make head against this state of mingled regret and bitterness; he could not yet bring himself to accept it with any sort of submission; his feelings of gratitude and joy at his returning strength seemed almost as if they had been sent in mockery to make disappointment more cruel. But this thought brought its own remedy. His life had been given back to him, not surely only that he might endure this fierce trial – something would come out of the furnace. And when he remembered what his well-being was to his father, the resolution of self-conquest was made in something else than pride. “God help me. I’ll learn my lesson!” he thought; and he dimly felt that that lesson meant more than putting a bold face on things, or even than a surface recovery of spirits, of the probability of which last he was of course then no judge. It meant whether this bitter trial was to leave him more or less of a man than it found him – more of a Christian if he would not be less of a man.
It must not be supposed that Cheriton at this time attained with any permanence to such convictions – he worked his way to them at intervals; but, after all, most of his sleepless hours were spent in a hopeless involuntary recall of his past happiness. Ruth haunted him as if she had been a spirit, and of course the over-fatigue produced by the effort to force his mind into its usual channels affected his health, and made him still less able to fight against his troubles.
He was very reluctant to confess himself beaten, and began to talk to Jack with would-be eagerness about going to London and beginning his reading for the bar. His name had been entered at the Temple, most of his “dinners” were eaten, and he had never intended his time of waiting for a brief to be an idle one. Presently his father called him, and he started up and went downstairs, while Jack went back to his writing with divided attention, and dim suspicions of the truth gaining ground.
Meanwhile Cheriton found himself called to a conference in the study.
All the arrangements for Alvar’s marriage had been deferred through Cheriton’s illness, and Mr Lester felt it somewhat strange that he should be the first person who saw the need of recommencing them. He told Alvar that he wished to speak to him, and made a sort of apology to him for Cheriton’s presence by saying that he wished him to hear the money arrangements which he thought fit to make.
“I am sure, Alvar,” said Mr Lester, formally, “you have shown great unselfishness in putting your own affairs so completely on one side during your brother’s illness; but now there is no longer any reason for deferring the consideration of your marriage, and I should be glad to know what plans you may have formed for the future.”
“It is your wish, sir, that I should be married – soon?” said Alvar, coolly and deferentially.
“Why – October was mentioned from the first, wasn’t it?” said Mr Lester, with a sort of taken-aback manner that made Cheriton smile.
“Yes,” said Alvar. “If that is your desire, and Mr Seyton approves, I should wish it.”
“Why – why – haven’t you settled it all with Virginia?”
“I did not think one should trouble a lady with those matters, nor did I wish to marry while my brother might need me.”
“That was very good of you; but I hope by that time to be in London,” said Cherry, decidedly, and with a look, conveying caution.
Alvar was silent for a moment, and then said, with what Cheriton called his princely air, —
“I shall then marry in October, and I will take my wife to visit my friends and my – other country.”
“Why, yes; that would be very proper, no doubt; and I think you once told me that you wished to take a house in London.”
“That would be good luck for me,” said Cherry, by way of encouragement.
“Yes,” said Alvar, “I wish it to be so.”
Mr Lester then entered into an explanation of the means which he was prepared to place at Alvar’s disposal, talked of house rent and of Virginia’s fortune, and said a few words on the amount of his own means, and what he meant to do for the younger ones. Nettie was provided for by her mother’s fortune, a smaller proportion of which would be inherited by the sons also at their father’s death. “But,” as Mr Lester concluded, “of course they all know that in the main they must look to their own exertions.”
“Of course,” said Cheriton.
Alvar looked very much surprised.
“The boys,” he said, “yes; but I thought, my father, you would wish that Cheriton should be rich.”
“Alvar,” said Mr Lester, rising and speaking with real dignity, “you misunderstand me. In such matters I can make no distinctions between my sons. Cheriton and his brothers stand exactly on the same footing. As for you, you will have to represent the old name, and keep the old place on its proper level. I shall not stint you of the means of doing so with ease and dignity.”
Alvar cast down his eyes, and a curious look as of a sort of oppression passed over his face.
“That will be an obligation to me,” he said, gravely. “You are most – honourable to me, my father.”
“Not at all,” said Mr Lester. “I should not think of acting otherwise. Well – now you had better be off to Elderthwaite and settle all your affairs.”
Alvar left the room, and Mr Lester burst out, —
“I declare, there’s something about that fellow that makes me feel as if I were a schoolboy!” Then, a little ashamed of the admission, he went on, “I like to see more ardour in a lad when his marriage is in question. Why, Rupert lived at Elderthwaite, while he was here!”
“We must make allowance for the difference of manners,” said Cherry. “Alvar is very good to me. But, father, I don’t think I shall be strong enough to shoot this month; it would be foolish to catch another cold; so I thought I should like a little trip somewhere soon – just a change before I settle down to work again.”
“Why, yes,” said Mr Lester; “of course, if you wish, though we haven’t had much good of you since you came home, my boy. Where do you want to go?”
“I don’t know – to Paris, perhaps,” said Cherry, on the spur of the moment. “Huntingford and Donaldson both asked me to join them this summer; so I shouldn’t interfere with Alvar. Then, afterwards I can make all my arrangements for London.”
“Well, yes,” said Mr Lester, reluctantly; “if you can’t shoot, there’s no use, of course, in your going to Milford or Ashrigg.”
“Jack can go; it’s time he went about a little, and he will be a better shot than I am soon. And when I come back, I’ll be ready for anything.”
Cherry’s energy was quite natural enough to deceive his father, especially as he kept out of sight during this interview; but when he went away from the study, his heart suddenly failed him, and he felt as if he never should have the courage to set about carrying out the plans on which he had just been insisting.
Chapter Five.
Misgivings
“I looked for that which is not, nor can be.”
A few days before Alvar’s interview with his father, Rupert had left Oakby to make his personal application to Ruth Seyton’s guardians, backed up by a letter from Mr Lester, and by her own communication to her grandmother. Of course, nothing could be said of the six months of mutual understanding, and this concealment weighed lightly enough on Ruth’s conscience. She vexed Virginia by her reserve on all the details of her engagement, but what really troubled her was her parting interview with Rupert, as they were alone together in the garden at Elderthwaite.
This had once been laid out in the Italian style, with fountains, statues, and vases, stiff, neat paths, and little beds cut in the smooth turf and full of gay colour. Of all kinds of gardening, this kind can least bear neglect, and at Elderthwaite a few occasional turns with the scythe and a sprinkling of weedy-looking flowers did not suffice to make it a pleasant resort.
Ruth sat on the pedestal of a broken nymph by the side of a dried-up fountain. This garden was supposed to be “kept up,” so some flaring yellow nasturtiums and other inexpensive flowers filled the little beds round. It was a dull day, and the weather was chilly, and Ruth in her crimson shawl looked by far the most cheerful object in the garden. Rupert had stuck some of the nasturtiums in her hat, and they suited her dark hair and warm, clear skin. After a great deal of talk, entirely satisfactory to both, Rupert said, lightly, —
“By the way, I thought I would take Master Cherry to task for his manner to you the other night.”
“Cherry – his manner – what do you mean?” stammered Ruth, with changing colour.
“Well, I was rather sorry I had said anything about it, but he was very frank, poor boy, and told me you had refused him.”
“I – I did not think you would have asked him such a question,” said Ruth, hardly knowing what she said in the agony of fear, relief, and shame.
“Oh, well, we’re almost like brothers, you know, and I was not going to have him make such great eyes at you for nothing. What had he to reproach you with?”
The words were more an exclamation than a question, but they terrified Ruth, and she pressed coaxingly up to Rupert, and said with a good deal of agitation, – “Oh, I am very sorry – very; but – but of course I couldn’t tell of him – could I? And he is so impetuous and so set on his own way! But I don’t want you to be angry with him, poor boy, or – or with me, for, oh! my darling, we mustn’t quarrel again, or it would kill me!”
“Is she afraid I shall find out how much encouragement she gave him?” said Rupert in his teasing way.
“Oh! he didn’t want much encouragement,” said Ruth. “But there, never mind, he’ll soon forget all about me. Did you think no one ever liked me but you?”
Rupert’s rejoinder was cut short by the appearance of Virginia, and Ruth ran towards her, for once glad to leave Rupert. She tried to persuade herself that she had told him no direct falsehood, but the memory of her two interviews with Cheriton lay heavy on her soul.
She knew that she had sinned against her own article of faith, her love for Rupert; and her perfect pride and glory in its perfection was marred. She had fallen below her own standard; she could no longer feel that she acted out her own ideal. Ruth was a girl capable of an ideal, though she had not set up a lofty one. Perhaps every one has some standard, however poor, and the crucial test of character may be whether we pull it down to suit our failures, or no. Ruth at this time was earnestly endeavouring to do so, but it did not come easy to her, and by way of set-off she occupied herself with being exceedingly kind to Virginia, whom she was beginning to consider injured, and in whom she recognised an unexpected warmth of resentment. Not that Virginia ever uttered a complaint of Alvar, but she avoided his name in so marked a manner, and looked so unhappy, that she was self-betrayed.
They were sitting together in the drawing-room on the day of Alvar’s interview with Mr Lester. It was a dreary, un-homelike-looking room on that wet, cloudy day, but Ruth, spite of misgivings, had a bright prosperous air as she sat writing to Rupert, curls, ribbons, and ornaments all in order, the deep red bands on her summer dress giving it a cheerful air even on a wet day.
Virginia was sitting in the window doing nothing; she was pale, and her white dress with its elaborate flouncings had seen more than one wearing. She did not look expectant of a lover. Ruth watched her for a little while, and then said, slyly, —
“He cometh not, she said,
She said I am aweary, aweary;
I would that I were dead!”
“Ruth! how can you?” exclaimed Virginia, indignantly. “Who would expect anybody on such a wet day as this? Of course I don’t?”
“Queenie!” said Ruth, springing up and kneeling down beside her, “I don’t like to see you look so miserable. If Don Alvar is a lukewarm lover, he’s not good enough for my Queenie, and he shan’t have her. There!”
“You have no right to say such a thing, Ruth. I may be silly and foolish, but I won’t hear any one find fault with him, not even you!”
“Bravo, Queenie! but I wasn’t going to find fault with him exactly. I daresay he thinks it is all right enough, only – only that’s not my idea of a lover! Give him a little pull up, Queenie; scold him – if you can.”
Virginia coloured, trembled, and scarcely refrained from tears.
“You make me reproach myself, Ruth,” she said, “for being so silly and exacting. It ought to please me that Alvar is so good and kind, and that at last his people have found him out. It does– ”
“Look!” exclaimed Ruth, pointing out of window. “Who comes there? And your gown is crumpled, and your necktie is faded, and you’re not fit to be seen! Run – run and adorn yourself!”
But Virginia hardly heard her, she was too eager to see Alvar for any delay, and, hurrying to the garden-door, she opened it, while Ruth recollected the awkwardness of an interview with Alvar and fled. But he was far too punctilious to come into the drawing-room with his wet coat, hat, and umbrella, and he waved his hand to Virginia and went round to the front door, where, in the hall, he met Ruth, and acknowledged her as he passed with a stately bow that nearly annihilated her.
Virginia had meant to be distant and reproachful, but her resolutions always melted in Alvar’s presence; he was so delightful to her that she forgot all her previous vexations. Demonstrative she never could be to him, but she contrived to say, —
“It is a long time since you were here, dear Alvar.”
“Ah, yes,” he said, “mi dona, too long indeed; but we have had people in the house, and Cherry is not strong enough to entertain them.”
“How is he?” asked Virginia, feeling, as she always did, as if rebuked for selfishness.
“Pretty well; this rain is bad for him; he may not go out,” said Alvar, who did not wish to represent Cheriton as specially unwell just then. “But see, mi querida, I have been talking to my father, and he gives me courage to speak of the future.” And then in the most deferential manner Alvar unfolded his plans, ending by saying, —
“And will you come with me to Seville that I may show my English bride to my countrymen, and teach them what flowers grow in England?”
“I would rather go to Spain than anywhere else,” said Virginia, all misgivings gone. “I hope they will – like me.”
“Ah,” said Alvar, smiling, “there is no fear. They would not like those boys – but you – they would worship!”
Virginia laughed gaily, and he continued presently, touching the bow on her dress, – “But this ribbon – it is not a pretty colour. I am rude, but I do not like it.”
“Oh, Alvar, I am very sorry. Ruth said I ought to change it. I thought you would not come, and I didn’t care for my ribbons. I do not care – except when you see me.”
There was a break in her voice as she looked at Alvar with eyes full of pathetic appeal for a response to the love she gave him.
Alvar smiled tenderly.
“We will soon change it,” he said, and, opening the glass door again, he picked two crimson roses that climbed over it, shook the rain-drops carefully from their petals, and then fastened them into Virginia’s hair and dress. “There!” he said, “that is the royal colour, the colour for my queen. See, I must have a share of it. Give me the rosebud.”
Virginia stood for a moment with her eyes cast down. She could have thrown herself into Alvar’s arms, and poured forth her feelings with a fervour of expression that might have startled him, but the doubt and timidity which she had never lost towards him restrained her; she put the rose into his coat and was happy. The sun came out through the clouds, they strolled through the garden together, and Alvar talked to her about Spain, his stately old grandfather, his many cousins, and all the surroundings of his old life.
When he left her at length, and she ran indoors to Ruth, she was another creature from the pale, lifeless girl who had watched the rain-clouds in the morning.
Alvar, too, went home well pleased with his morning, and ready to make himself agreeable, and as he came through the larch wood into the park, he suddenly encountered the twins.
Nettie was standing with her back to a tree, a very shabby-looking book under her arm. She was scarlet, and almost sobbing with indignation. Bob was opposite to her, evidently having got the upper hand in their dispute. He was talking in a downright decisive voice, and ended with, —
“And so I tell you, I won’t have it.”
“I don’t care.”
“If you do it again, I’ll tell Cherry.”
“Well, tell him, then! I’ll tell him myself. He would do just the same, I know he would.”
“Then why do you get up in the morning and go out – ?”
Here Bob caught sight of Alvar and stopped short.
“What is the matter with you two? Why do you dispute?” said Alvar, good-naturedly.
“Nothing,” said Bob, shortly; “I was only talking to Nettie.”
“We were only talking,” said Nettie; and they walked away together, with a manifest determination to exclude Alvar from a share even in their quarrels. Interfering between the twins, Cheriton had once said, was like interfering between husband and wife; the peacemaker got the worst of it.
Apparently Cheriton was experiencing this truth, for when Alvar came in, he heard sounds of lively discussion in the library. His father was speaking in aloud, clear voice, and with his Westmoreland tones strongly marked, a sure sign that he was in a passion. Jack was standing very upright, looking impatient and important. Cherry sat listening, but with an irritated movement of the fingers, and a flush of annoyance on his face. It had been a rough time lately at Oakby, and Mr Lester was just anxious enough about Cheriton to be ready to find fault with him.
“No, Cheriton,” he was saying, as Alvar entered, “I’ll not hear a word of the kind. It’s a fine result of your influence over the lads if it’s to lead to this sort of mischief. Warn them! I forbid it positively. You have made too much of these boys, letting them write to you at Oxford. Much good their writing does them, and lending them books beyond them. No, I’ll do my duty by my tenants in every way – education and all; but there’s a limit.”
“But, father,” said Cherry, “I can’t make it out. Of course, if Wilson has seen the young Flemings in the copses, I’m very sorry; but anyhow, it would be better to try to talk to them.”
“No, I’ll not have it done. Wilson has orders to watch to-night, and if they’re caught, over to Hazelby they shall go, and no begging off for them.”
“Oh, father,” said Cherry, starting up; “do let me go and see them this afternoon. I haven’t been near them since I was ill, and I’m sure I can find out the truth of it. It’s ruin to a lad to get into a row with the keepers, and they are capital fellows. Just let me try.”
“What is the matter?” asked Alvar.
“Why,” said his father, “some young fellows that Cheriton has a special fancy for, have been poaching in my copses!”
“Why, they deserve hanging for it!” said Alvar.
“Hanging!” cried Jack. “The evils of the Game Laws – ”
“Oh, nonsense, Jack. Put that in your ‘Essay on the Evils of all Sorts of Governments,’” said Cherry; then turning to the squire, “But they are not poachers, father.”
“I will not be interfered with. You take too much on yourself,” said Mr Lester; then, seeing Cheriton look first blankly amazed, then angry, and finally hurt beyond measure, he suddenly softened.
“Well, you can go and see them if you wish. Don’t vex yourself, my lad; you make too much of it. But you’re looking better than you did yesterday.”
“Oh, my head ached yesterday,” said Cherry brightly; but he looked up at his father with a sudden pang and sense of ingratitude. Why could he care so little for anything, so little for the Flemings, even while he argued in their behalf? He lingered a little, talking to his father, while Jack returned to his essay “On the Evils Inherent in every Existing Form of Government;” and then set off on his walk to the Flemings’ farm. He ought to care for lads to whom he had taught their cricket and their catechism, and who were much of an age with himself and his brothers, and often thought to resemble them, being equally big, fair, and strong. He talked and sympathised till the story of certain wrongs was confided to him by the younger one – how a certain “she” had nearly driven him to bad courses, but “she warn’t worth going to the bad for.”
Cherry looked at the lad’s serene and ruddy face, and felt as if he might get a lesson.
Did all his culture and his principle and refinement only sap his powers of endurance?
“You’re a brave fellow, Willie,” he said, putting out his hand. “I wish – well, don’t let me hear of your getting into trouble, or going with those poaching fellows.”
“No, sir, not for her, nor for any lass. But – there’s the old parson.”
Cherry got up from the wall of the field where he had been sitting, and went to meet him.
“Ha, Cherry, my lad, glad to see you out again,” said Parson Seyton, coming cheerily over the furrows. “Good-day t’ye, Willie; turnips look well.”
Young Fleming touched his hat, and after a word or two, Cheriton asked Mr Seyton if he were going Oakby way, as they might walk together; and, with a farewell to Fleming, they started down the hill.
“If I hadn’t found you here, I should have been inclined to poach on Ellesmere’s manor, and give young Willie a word of advice,” said Mr Seyton.
“I know. He has been getting in with the Ryders and Fowlers, and my father heard an exaggerated story about him and Ned being seen in our copses at night. I think that the Flemings are above taking to poaching; but Willie has been in a bad way.”
“Hope your father’ll catch some of my fellows; do ’em good,” said the parson. “If he caught my nephew Dick, and shut him up for a bit, the place might be all the better. Hangs about all day, just like his father. He’s after something, and I can’t make out what.”
“Sometimes I see him about with Bob.”
“With Bob? Ha! you look about you, Cherry,” said the parson, mysteriously. “My eyes are sharp. I knew when Miss Ruth and Captain Rupert had their little meetings; but then, I knew better than spoil sport.”
“You knew more than most,” said Cherry.
“Ay, and look here, Cherry,” said the parson, stopping and looking full at him. “There’s another thing I can see, and that is, when a man’s in earnest and when he isn’t; and when all’s smooth and sweet to a girl, and when she looks this way and that for something that’s wanting.”
“I have nothing to do with my cousin’s engagement,” said Cherry, bewildered.
“Nay – nay, it’s not your cousin. I don’t believe in foreigners, Cherry; and Master Alvar isn’t what I call a lover for a pretty girl that worships the ground he treads on. If he wants her money, why, a gentleman should keep up appearances at least.”